


climbing the same mountain on different sides

by mundanememory



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Outsider, boesersson is endgame and jt/elias is transitory, rating is for second chapter only, the working title for this fic was 'let quinn REST'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:46:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21530251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mundanememory/pseuds/mundanememory
Summary: Quinn has always thought of Elias in terms of cubes.It's not so clear anymore. Elias could be a cube, but he's made out of ice. He's built to melt.
Relationships: Brock Boeser/Elias Pettersson, J. T. Miller/Elias Pettersson
Comments: 58
Kudos: 260





	1. quinn

**Author's Note:**

> 1) im a little in love with every member of the lotto line 2) i heard a rumor that quinns living with elias (unsure if this is accurate) 3) quinn always looks REALLY tired. 4) elias' brother got a dog named tequila and i thought about body shots all summer
> 
> i actively avoided connecting anything in this fic to the real schedule / timing of anything; dont expect consistency to real life outside of quinn actually having his first nhl goal on the home opener the same night bo was named captain
> 
> special shoutouts to leo and enna for enabling me all the damn time on twitter and chatting w me thru some stuff about the fic!! leo even made some amazing cover art (imagine we are wattpad for 2 seconds) which im trying to figure out how to best include / post so sit tight on that
> 
> title comes from Derek Parfit's book "On What Matters". the entirety of my moral philosophy knowledge comes from the good place so dont expect any strong commentary on anything but i did like flirting with the idea of the social contract in here and the concept that people have fundamentally different ways of seeing the world / understanding one another!
> 
> (squick check for human/nhler typical levels of drug use: a couple scenes of alcohol use and two very brief scenes of marijuana use)

“This isn’t really what I expected NHL hazing was gonna be like,” Quinn says while stripping his shirt off to chants of “Huggy! Bear!”

“Huggy. just lie down and let us lick salt off your body to celebrate your first goal,” Tyler says solemnly, taking the tequila from Bo. Tyler’s voice doesn’t match his body. He’s easily the tallest guy Quinn’s ever played with, a massive physical presence, and then he opens his mouth and sounds like a Muppet.

Quinn tries to accept just how _strange_ everything is in the NHL. The boys are packed into Bo’s house, jostling around in the living room shouting at each other like a bunch of college kids. Quinn figures that most NHLers are just overgrown college kids and CHLers, doing body shots to celebrate the home opener and Bo being named captain.

So now Quinn’s new name is Huggy Bear, _apparently_, and he’s lying shirtless on his back on his captain’s glass coffee table, and a 6 foot 8 defenseman with a Muppet voice is about to lick salt off his chest. Whatever. Quinn can be cool about it.

Tyler does a body shot off him, then Bo, then Tanner and Brandon and Chris (verdict: extremely weird without teeth). When Quinn finally rolls off the table, the boys chanting for Bo’s turn, he takes three shots in quick succession because it’s just gonna be one of those nights. 

Elias nods at him, already a little flushed in his cheeks, and says, “Don’t worry, Q. Brock will get us home,” as he takes the salt and leans over Bo’s body. Quinn nods. He watches Elias lick Bo’s chest and suck on the lime after, laughing with his eyes squeezed shut, and he takes another shot.

“That’s four, right Mysie?” he asks Tyler.

“Sure!” Tyler says, handing him another.

It’s not until Bo is released from being the body of the body shots and Elias is being herded toward the table that Quinn realizes he’s still sitting shirtless with a mixture of teammates’ saliva, salt, and tequila on his body. He wanders to the kitchen to wash off his sticky chest while Elias strips down and lies down. There he finds Brock with his head in the fridge, standing still as a statue. “You looking for something, man?” he asks. “The White Claws are in the back.”

“No, uh,” Brock squeaks. “Just didn’t really wanna watch Millsy lick Petey’s chest.”

_Oh_, Quinn thinks. 

He looks over his shoulder. JT is a big dude. Most guys are big compared to Quinn, but JT has a presence to him that even the other big guys don’t. He’s bent over Elias, the two of them whispering about something with only an inch between them. JT is bracketed around Elias, big arms closed around Elias’ slender frame. Elias pokes JT’s face. They both laugh, and when JT bends in to lick the salt from the center of Elias’ chest between his nipples, Elias’ eyes flutter shut for just a moment.

Quinn spins back around, eyes wide. Brock’s also watching, seeing the gentle poke to JT’s face and the way JT’s hair falls between them before he drops his face and his lips to Elias’ chest. He groans and sticks his head all the way in the fridge, his hand a vice grip on the door.

He isn’t sure whether or not he’s surprised. Elias and Brock are _Petey and Boes_, two of the closest guys on the team. They’re magic on the ice together, and not even the Swedes understand Elias as well as Brock. They’ve always seemed to be on a different wavelength than everyone else, communicating solely through shoulder taps and hand gestures on the bench, making each other laugh at dinner with only a tilt of the head.

But still, if Quinn was forced to hazard a guess, he’d probably say that Elias was the one with a crush and not the other way around. Quiet, pensive Elias, always two steps ahead of everyone without anyone knowing. Elias who no one has ever seen on a dating app or talking to a girl in a bar. Not Brock, who follows every Instagram model in BC and rotates through which one he DMs after home games.

It all seems very backwards to Quinn. Yet, so far NHL life in general seems very backwards to Quinn, so he leans past the constipated-looking Brock and grabs a White Claw out of the fridge.

Brock only manages to hide for about five more minutes before Bo drags him back into the party area and Elias beckons him over. He’s spread out on the table, giggly and flushed, red marks on his chest from the other guys. Quinn watches, amused, as they goad a nauseous-looking Brock on. Brock is red and he’s staring at Elias’ bare skin. “C’mon Boes,” Elias says, breathy, reaching a hand up into Brock’s hair. Brock laughs but looks like he might die.

Quinn blinks, and maybe takes three more shots, and suddenly a few hours have passed. They’re all sitting around talking in the living room now, on the couches and the floor. Elias is wrapped around JT on the couch, still shirtless and flushed all down his chest. JT’s laughing with his arm around him. Across the room, Quinn’s sitting on the fireplace next to Brock, who has a crushed White Claw can in his hand.

“You breathing over there, bud?” he asks.

“Hfrguh,” Brock grumbles. Quinn pats his shoulder.

Bo kicks them out eventually, and Quinn is so drunk he can’t see straight, but not drunk enough to not nudge Elias into Brock’s arms when Bo says, “Brock, please get the two of them home.”

* * *

In the morning, Quinn’s cracking open a Pedialyte in the kitchen when Elias stumbles in and blearily starts the coffee. Down the hall, Quinn can hear the shower turn on.

“Holy shit. You slept together?” he says, thinking of Brock and his fawning, the arm supporting Elias as they left Bo’s place last night.

“Yeah.” Elias blinks. “Fuck. We really did.”

“Dude!” Quinn’s happy for them though he wonders what’s gonna happen now. What to do after sleeping with a linemate isn’t exactly covered in media training. Elias sips his coffee and smiles weakly.

Five minutes later the shower turns off and in walks... JT? with only a towel around his waist. Quinn’s jaw drops.

Hold on. Hold _the fuck_ on. That's not right.

Quinn was wasted beyond belief last night but he _remembers _Brock carrying Elias home. He's pretty sure he even remembers them whispering in the kitchen as dozed drunkenly into sleep. This is all backwards. It’s all wrong.

“Hey.” JT touches Elias’ arm. Internally, _Kill Bill_ sirens are blaring, but Quinn just snaps his mouth shut and nods at him. He gulps down his Pedialyte and, when his bagel pops out of the toaster, smears it aggressively with cream cheese, the knife spraying crumbs all over the marble countertop.

When JT leaves after breakfast, hickeys purple on his neck, Quinn pulls out his phone and texts Brock:

_dude_

_something totally not chill happened last night_

“So.” Elias puts his mug down. It clinks gently on the marble countertop. “We’re gonna keep that, just, ah, with Millsy—” Elias wets his lips down nervously “—you know, just between us, okay?”

“Oh!” Quinn nearly drops his phone, then deletes the message he was about to send to Brock. “Yeah, ‘course buddy.”

“Cool.”

Quinn’s a pretty quiet guy. He keeps to himself. He’s good at keeping secrets and he’s good at going with the flow. But this he can’t comprehend. He chews his cheek, deciding whether or not to say anything, and then he can’t help himself. “_Millsy?_” he says, putting his hands out. Bagel crumbs fly onto the marble. “How did _that_ happen?”

Elias shrugs. He looks at his mug. “After Brock left last night,” he explains slowly, “we were just texting. And he asked if he could come over. And I said yes.” Elias stops talking. Quinn knows that he’s not getting any more information, at least not this morning.

Quinn’s phone buzzes. It’s a text from Brock: _what??? u ok bro?_

Quinn looks down at the tiny text bubbles, thinking about the _millsy and petey fucked_ message that he didn’t send. Eventually he types and sends two more:

_jsyk petey slept with someone last night_

_didnt see their face tho_

He deletes and retypes the genderless pronoun _they_ about eight times before he sends it. If he really hadn’t seen the person’s face, if his only evidence really had been just the sound of a shower, he probably would’ve said _her_. But he can’t bring himself to type it. Brock can have one tiny truth in an icy grey wall of lies.

* * *

Brock’s smile is fake at practice. He doesn’t say anything in the locker room and he just nods when Bo chirps him for being hungover. He stopped responding to Quinn this morning after the text about Elias hooking up and he doesn’t say anything about it to his face.

The boys get dressed and there are two crescent moon bruises on Elias’ sides, right at the shelf of his hip bones. Quinn looks down and tries not to think about JT’s big hands wrapped around Elias’ waist, the same big hands that were bracketed around Elias’ body last night on Bo’s coffee table.

The three of them, Elias with JT and Brock, skate together on a line, weaving around one another in an elaborate dance. Quinn gets a little dizzy. He’s really fucking hungover. It’s ironic how well they play together, how easily it comes for them. Quinn feels uncomfortable with the contradiction.

“Y’good, Huggy?” Tyler says, nudging him between drills.

“Y-yeah,” Quinn says. “Just hungover.”

JT’s grinning, missing tooth exposed, after practice and he says, “Who wants lunch? I’m still figuring out the best places to eat in this city.” He’s eyeing the younger guys, the single ones. He nudges his linemates on either side of him. “Petey, Boes, you in? Huggy? Thatch, Gaud, you too buds.”

Quinn doesn’t do anything but shrug and he ends up in the passenger seat of Elias’ low and sleek little car headed to some place in Yaletown Brock suggested. It’s something vaguely Asian, what specific variety Quinn is not sure, but they sit and Brock tells them all what to order and promises it’ll be good.

Quinn’s between Thatcher and Adam, and on the other side of the table Elias sits between JT and Brock. Quinn watches the three of them carefully, even as Thatcher pulls him into a conversation about college hockey. Thatcher’s funny and he argues with Adam about college hockey in Boston as Quinn listens and laughs.

Quinn’s listening to Adam insist that BC isn’t even _in_ Boston and Thatcher defend his school while Brock orders for the table in a soft voice to their server, but he’s watching JT and Elias. They’re giggling about something; Elias’ body is turned into JT’s, and he squints his eyes shut as he laughs.

JT reaches out a finger and pokes at one of Elias’ dimples. Elias scrunches his entire face up and retaliates, poking the mole on JT’s cheek. They move in concert, tilting back and forth in and out of one another’s space. The room spins around Quinn and he wraps his hand around his glass, still feeling a little hungover.

Thatcher’s arm comes down heavy around his shoulders suddenly and Quinn jerks back to the conversation. “What about Michigan, Huggy?” he asks, jiggling him a little. “Plenty to do around Ann Arbour?”

“Huh? Oh,” Quinn says. Thatcher’s arm around him grounds his back to the conversation, and he slides back into the space between Thatcher and Adam’s words. “Ann Arbour fuckin’ rocks, man, if we have a day off in Detroit we should head down and I’ll take the guys to one of my favorite spots.”

Brock turns back to the conversation with Elias and JT and Quinn watches as Elias’ body language freezes. His outline goes rigid, from the curves bent toward JT to cold straight lines parallel between JT and Brock. Thatcher says, “Sounds great. Brock can take us out in Minny. And I’ll take us out in Boston.”

“No way, man, we’re not going to your shitty BC bars,” Adam says with a laugh. He snorts. “Fuckin’ _Chesnut Hill_. Come _on_.”

Before Adam and Thatcher can start fighting over Boston hockey again, Elias says, deadpan, “You’re all free to come to Sweden whenever you’d like. I’ll give you the tour.”

And Brock’s face lights up, and Quinn _knows_ that visiting Sweden was something Brock and Elias had talked about last spring, back when _Petey and Boes_ seemed like an inevitability and Elias wasn’t going cold at Brock’s touch, and Thatcher and Adam both seem to look at Brock too, and for a split second Quinn isn’t sure what’s going to happen. The conversation seems to plummet into free fall for a blink of an eye, no one sure what’s about to be said, but then JT grabs Elias’ wrist and says, “No way, I’ve always wanted to go to Sweden!”

Brock purses his lips and Elias says, “You’ve really never been?”, his body curving back into JT’s. Quinn feels dizzy and the most he can do is drink his water and lean into Thatcher’s grounding arm around him. When the food comes, he stuffs his face and listens to the conversation without contributing much. Adam is loud enough for all of them, anyway.

He talks non-stop about his fiancee and segues into teasing the rest of them for being single. “Hey, wait,” Quinn says after sitting and accepting the chirps for a minute. “I have a girlfriend! I’m not single, either.”

Adam guffaws. “And you _just_ remembered? Dude.” He shakes his head in admonishment.

“I called her yesterday!” he protests. “Not my fault she’s still in school.”

Adam sighs, then begins to regale the boys with long (and pretty explicit) stories about how he and his fiancee used to handle long distance. Quinn makes eye contact with Elias across the table, who faux-gags. Next to Quinn, Thatcher bites back a laugh. Quinn fumbles with his chopsticks and shovels down another mouthful of noodles, getting sauce all over his chin and earning himself another round of chirps. Well, whatever. Anything to get Adam to stop talking about having sex over FaceTime.

* * *

A week later and Quinn’s up late texting his girlfriend. It’s just a two hour difference, and it could be much worse, but it sucks with the schedule and he still forgets sometimes, leaving her on read for hours or days. The NHL makes everything hard and weird to balance out all of the amazing life-changing aspects. In the next room, Elias is getting laid. With JT. It wasn’t a one-time thing. Turns out, it wasn’t even a two-time thing. Quinn has stopped counting. He’d rather not make tally marks for every night he hears the bedframe bump the wall.

JT doesn’t stay the night. Sometimes he does, but this night he doesn’t. Elias looks pleased with himself in the kitchen when Quinn gets up, sipping his coffee in an oversized shirt. It says _PLYMOUTH WHALERS _across the front. Quinn isn’t sure where JT played junior but he sure as hell knows that Elias didn’t play in the OHL.

Quinn burns his bagel in the toaster. “Motherfucker,” he grumbles to himself. He stares at it with a frown before deciding to eat it anyway. Elias stands to put his mug in the sink and the shirt hangs loosely on his narrow shoulders. There’s a bite mark on the junction of his throat and shoulder. Quinn sighs and throws away his burnt bagel, only a single bite taken out of it. 

His phone lights up with a few new texts from his girlfriend but he swipes the notifications out of view and clicks the screen of his phone dark. There’s too much going on at once and he just wants to focus on getting a new bagel in the toaster. He’ll call her later. He _will_. He’s been forgetting lately, too worn out from the long travel to always listen to her voicemails after the plane lands or call her back in the morning. But he’s gonna be better about it.

Another text slides onto the screen as his new bagel pops out of the toaster. He grabs the bagel and tells himself to text her back. As soon as he’s finished eating.

* * *

“When am I allowed to ask about you and Millsy?” Quinn finally says. It’s the middle of autumn and outside, the leaves are falling. The world is changing before Quinn’s eyes. JT is in the shower and Quinn and Elias are eating breakfast.

“What?” Elias asks. “What do you mean?”

Quinn exhales, indignant. “What do _you _mean, what do I mean? You guys. You’re fucking?”

Elias nods.

“But, I, it’s just,” Quinn splutters. He can’t find the words. Elias and JT don’t even hang out outside the rink. JT hangs out with the older guys (because he’s _six_ years older than Elias) and Elias hangs out with the young single guys. “Why?” He eventually manages to say, putting his hands out, palms out. It doesn’t make _sense_. Not when Elias and Brock and _Petey and Boes_ and Elias and JT are… both hot? Both on the top line? There is no common denominator that makes everything add up to Quinn.

“You have a girlfriend, right?” Elias asks, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, so what?”

“And the two of you sleep together?” 

Sometimes Quinn hates how weird Elias talks, how blunt and stilted he can be in conversation. His words can be flat on all sides with sharp edges. Quinn guffaws but says, “Yeah, I mean, like, I guess.” They’re not sleeping together _lately_, since she’s still in Michigan and Quinn is in Vancouver, but in general they are.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Q,” Elias says. The shower turns off. “I was pretty tired of not getting laid.”

Quinn makes a sound in his throat that he didn’t know he was capable of making.

“Millsy wants to get laid too.” Elias shrugs. “We have a, ah, how do you say—”

“Fuckbuddy thing?” Quinn offers, before grimacing. He can’t believe this conversation is happening.

“I was gonna say, ‘understanding’,” Elias finishes. Quinn considers throwing himself out of the window for approximately two seconds before deciding that it’s probably not worth it.

He observes JT when he lumbers out of the bathroom, again in only a towel. Quinn’s not _gay_, but even he can appreciate the guy. They’re all in great shape, it comes with the profession, but JT has a rugged solidness to his body that’s different. He and Chris are kind of similar, in that they perennially look like they just came in from working on a farm splitting wood or something.

That was sort of a weird thought. Quinn sticks a knife into the cream cheese and pushes it out of his mind.

They eat in silence, then JT gets up and stretches his arms above his head, muscles tensing underneath his skin. He disappears back into Elias’ bedroom, and when he reemerges fully dressed, he smacks Elias’ ass and says, “See ya, bud,” before heading out. Elias rolls his eyes but smiles anyway.

* * *

“Is Petey sleeping with _Tuna?!_” Brock asks Quinn, gesturing not subtly at the two of them playing with Bo’s dog. The football game that Bo invited them all over to watch plays in the background; Quinn doesn’t really care about either team and he’s busy handling the moping Brock.

“Dude,” Quinn says. He shakes his head. “_No_. All they’re doing is playing with Gus. Besides, I already _told _you that I don’t know who he’s sleeping with.”

Brock frowns. He knows Quinn’s lying, and Quinn knows he knows it. He hates not being able to tell Brock the truth. Earnest, people-pleasing Brock. The kind of guy who wants to make everyone happy. Quinn hates to see him upset. But Quinn is also really fucking exhausted of Brock trudging around North America with sad puppy dog eyes.

“Look, how about you go text that girl you’ve been DM-ing?” he says. “Go, like, fuck your sadness out, I dunno.”

“Eh,” Brock says, grimacing.

“Dude. You’re bumming me out.” Quinn hates feeling bummed out. “How about you come over and we smoke?”

Brock looks back over to where Elias and Jake are sitting, looking at something on Jake’s phone. “Ugh,” he groans. “Fine. Yeah. Let’s do that. I wanna leave, anyway.”

They get up and grab their coats, apologizing to the guys for leaving early, and go back to Quinn’s apartment to smoke a joint on the floor of his bedroom. It’s silent as they pass it back and forth, smoke filling the room.

“I’m too fuckin’ high to go home,” Brock says to the ceiling. Quinn looks at the screen of his phone. It’s 2 A.M. and there’s 8 unread texts from his girlfriend. He doesn’t remember either of those things happening, the texts or the time passing.

“Sleep on the couch,” he replies.

In the morning, Quinn’s up early and Brock’s splayed out shirtless on the couch, dead to the world. He could sleep through a bomb going off.

Quinn’s putting the coffee on when JT exits Elias’ bedroom. Quinn blanches; he does not remember Elias getting home last night, but he and Brock were too high to notice pretty much anything last night. He looks over to the living area, suddenly thankful for Brock’s uncanny ability to sleep through anything.

“Dude,” Quinn says softly. “Boes is asleep on the couch. If you want to live through the day, you might be better off leaving now.”

Quinn isn’t sure how much JT knows about how Brock feels, but he either understands or is sufficiently freaked out by Quinn’s glare so he just says, “Oh, okay, sure,” and leaves, sliding his feet halfway into his shoes before opening and shutting the apartment door silently. Quinn exhales and shakes his head at the floor. 

Twenty minutes later and Elias is emerging from the bathroom in a towel. He bends over the counter and grabs a few grapes out of the bowl on the counter, munching on them contemplatively. “Did Millsy leave?” he asks.

Quinn nods, not offering any more information. Elias shrugs and pours himself a cup of coffee. “Today’s an off day, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Quinn replies.

Who knows if it’s because of the sound from the kitchen or just his natural circadian rhythm, but Brock takes that moment to wake up, sitting up on the couch and grunting. He rubs his face and Quinn and Elias both stare at him.

“Mornin’,” he says.

“Uh,” Elias says. He flicks a glance toward Quinn.

“We smoked together last night,” he explains. Brock trudges into the kitchen and blearily pours himself a cup of coffee.

“Jesus, I feel like shit.” He blinks, adjusting to his surroundings. 

Elias is staring at him. Brock looks up and notices him for the first time. They stare at each other. Quinn watches. They’re both shirtless, Elias wet from the shower and Brock rumpled from sleeping on the couch, Elias in only a towel and Brock in only his boxers.

“Good morning,” Elias says carefully.

“I—” Brock says.

“Anyone wanna go to the mall with me today!” Quinn cuts in, slapping his mug down on the marble with a dissonant _clank_.

Brock and Elias look at each other another moment, then both turn to look at Quinn; they shrug.

* * *

“Dude, come on, be a piggy with me. You’ll look great, I promise,” Thatcher says, pushing the costume package into Quinn’s hands.

Quinn stares at it, amused. “Are we actually doing this?” He turns to Elias, who’s holding a massive donkey head. “Are you in, Petey?”

“Of course,” he says. “It makes perfect sense. You and Thatch will make a good pair of pigs.”

“But, it’s—” Quinn stares at the image on the package. The pig costume is inflatable and it looks perfectly ridiculous. He drops his head. “It’s pretty fucking funny, okay. Yeah, I’m in.”

He’s pretty sure he can hear Brock whoop from an aisle over, and it’s decided. The single guys (except Chris, whose fiancee tags along as Fiona) show up at Alex’s house the night of the party in their _Shrek_ costumes, looking stupid and feeling ready to get fully blasted. That’s the whole point of Halloween, anyway.

Quinn downs a shot and half a hard lemonade within five minutes of walking in. It isn’t particularly easy to move around in the pig suit but he swishes around in the thing anyway, meeting the wives he hasn’t met yet and taking all the chirps about the pig costume in stride.

He sits for a while in the kitchen snacking and finishing his lemonade, which fizzes in his throat as it goes down. Bo hands him another shot and he takes it without thinking. “No body shots tonight, eh Cap?” he says with a wry smile.

“Absolutely not. I still don’t feel like my coffee table is clean. We don’t need to subject Eagle to that.” Bo chuckles and sips his beer. He looks good tonight, and so _different_, with the leather costume and his hair slicked back. It feels like it’s a version of Bo that Quinn’s not supposed to see.

Someone turns a playlist on and then bass is throbbing through the house, reverberating through Quinn’s chest. Quinn moves through the house while bobbing his head to the music, feeling it shake him from his skull to his ribs to his toes. He mingles, working his way through a throng of wives to drop down beside Troy on the couch.

“Whaddup, Huggs,” he says, a sweating beer in his hand.

“N’much,” Quinn replies.

They sit and nod along to the music, feeling it rumble the couch. Quinn isn’t sure who’s in charge of the aux, but as one song fades out, the next to start is “Zombie” by The Caterpillars and there’s suddenly cacophony in the room; ever since it came on after a win a week ago the boys have been arguing over whether it’s a good song or not.

There’s a scramble for the phone that’s hooked up to the speaker system but “Zombie” eventually prevails. Quinn doesn’t mind it; he can lean back into the couch with his eyes shut and ride the rhythm of the drums. The guitars drown out his thoughts.

“Sleeping over there, Pulse?” Jake calls from the other side of the couch.

“Nope. Just vibing.”

Quinn blinks back into reality and watches the guys on the team dance to the music. Across the room Brock wraps his arms around Elias’ waist, hauling him up and spinning him around. Elias tries to wriggle free, screeching out something that’s half-protest and half-laugh. It looks absurd, Elias in the headless donkey suit and Brock sliding around the floor in his green tights.

The lead singer of The Cranberries sings, _what’s in your head, in your head?_

Elias wiggles out of Brock’s arms and they wrestle around playfully, grabbing each other’s arms and pushing each other’s chests. The line from the song rattles around in Quinn’s brain like a coin in a tin can; _what’s in your head, in your head?_

He turns around to look for JT, wondering how he’s feeling about it all. He finds him in the kitchen, sandwiched between Tyler and his wife, the three of them half-dancing and half-grinding up on one another as they spill their drinks and bend forward while they cackle.

Quinn pats Troy’s leg and stands up to swish over to Thatcher, the pig costume making noise as he walks. “Hey Huggy,” Thatcher says, wrapping an arm over his shoulders. He’s still nursing his first beer of the night, strips ripped into the label. Quinn looks at the shakily-torn fringe, skinny strips that curl away from the bottle like a skirt. He likes that Thatcher isn’t complicated. He’s weird in the way that all goalies are weird but he’s friendly and kind and he doesn’t lie. He has the kind of concentration that allows him to perform delicate paper crafts on beer labels.

“Wanna embarrass some of these guys at pong with me?” Quinn asks.

Thatcher grins. Quinn can’t help but snort to himself at just how ridiculous he looks, even though he looks the same. “Y’know, Gaud _was_ just getting a little cocky, we might have to take him down a peg.”

They goad Adam and his partner of choice, who ends up being Tim, over to a table in the corner set up for pong. NHLers, after all, are just overgrown college kids and CHLers for the most part. Quinn dips the ball in the water in one of the cups, spinning it around and getting the tips of his fingers wet, too.

He inhales and tosses the ball, sinking it. Thatcher sinks his, too. They grin at each other. This is gonna be fun.

Adam and Tim walk back into the kitchen after their pong decimation, no doubt off to lick their wounds after their embarrassment of a performance, and Thatcher and Quinn laugh as they scan the room for their next opponent.

“Hey,” he says, pointing over to Bo and his wife, “let’s go. Horvats.”

“You think?” Quinn asks, looking up at Thatcher. He still doesn’t really know Bo’s wife. He does want to play more pong with Thatcher, though. And get another hard lemonade, probably.

“Hell yeah,” Thatcher says, nodding.

“Alright, man. I’m gonna grab another drink and then ask, want anything?” He mindlessly rearranges the solo cups on the ping pong table as he speaks, back into their triangle.

“Nah, I’m good. I’m gonna run to the bathroom.”

Quinn nods and they part, Quinn to the kitchen and Thatcher to the bathroom. Quinn digs through the fridge for another lemonade before striking up a conversation with Bo and Holly, who are hanging in a corner observing. He wheedles them into agreeing to a game, leading them to the table in the other room. He pops the cap of the lemonade off, the carbonation fizzing with a satisfying hiss.

Before he can take a sip, Thatcher’s back, grabbing Quinn’s arm tightly. “Huggy?!” he says, seeming concerned.

“Huh? What’s up, Thatch?” he asks. Across the table, Bo and Holly are giggling. Thatcher looks at them before looking back to Quinn.

“C’mere.” Thatcher tightens his grip on Quinn’s arm and drags him away from the table, pulling him into the coat closet. The light is off but Thatcher kicks the door shut behind them, shutting them into the claustrophobic dark. The space is narrow and they’re surrounded on all sides by coats. Quinn is pressed close to Thatcher, their massive inflatable costumes bent at awkward angles because of the lack of space.

“Jesus, man, what’s wrong with you?” Quinn says, stumbling backward until his back hits the closet door.

Thatcher puts a hand over his mouth and shakes his head. Quinn’s eyes are adjusting to the dark and the sight is strange, the hoof of the costume resting on top of the hand. “I,” Thatcher says. “Holy fuck.”

“_Dude_.” Quinn’s a little worried, now.

Thatcher drops his hand but shakes his head, his mouth hanging open. “You’re not gonna fuckin’ believe it. _Holy_ shit. There’s no way. Fuck.”

Quinn punches him, gently, in the gut. “Spit it out.”

“I just saw,” he says, lowering his voice even though they’re alone in a coat closet, “Millsy sucking off Donkey from the 2001 feature film _Shrek_, A.K.A. our very own Petey, in the bathroom. _Millsy_. And _Petey_. Holy fucking Christ.”

Quinn doesn’t react. “Oh. Yeah,” he says. For some reason he thought the information was going to be a lot more dramatic. Though it probably is pretty dramatic for Thatcher.

“‘_Oh_’?!” Thatcher sputters. “What the hell do you mean, ‘_oh_’?!”

“I mean.” Quinn shrugs. “I live with Petey. I already knew about all that.”

Thatcher sinks to the ground and sits with his hands on his knees. “You _knew_?! And you didn’t say anything?!”

“I dunno man, Petey told me not to!” It’s not Quinn’s fault, and it’s certainly not his job to be going around informing the guys about everyone’s sex lives.

Thatcher looks like his brain has turned off. Quinn purses his lips. He gestures his bottle at Thatcher, offering it to him wordlessly. Thatcher accepts it and takes a long drink.

* * *

Elias gets up on the flight, scooting by Quinn and disappearing to the back of the plane for a long time. Quinn, practically comatose while watching _The Office_, doesn’t notice how long he’s gone for until he comes back looking properly debauched. His hair is a mess, his face flushed from his eyes to his ears, his hoodie askew.

“Bro,” Quinn says as he scoots by. “Really?” He pops out his earbuds without bothering to pause the episode. He’s seen it a million times anyway.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elias says, slipping his headphones back on and closing his eyes.

Quinn has to pee later on the flight but decides to hold it.

Then after he finally gets to relieve himself in the hotel, he exits the bathroom to find a panicked-looking Troy in the doorway talking to Elias. “Huggy!” he says, grabbing his arm and yanking him into the hallway without warning. “Alright Petey I’ll have him _right_ back, don’t worry about it, we just gotta chat, okay, bye!”

Quinn hears Elias shut the door as Troy pulls him down the hall toward his room.

“Stech, what the fu—”

Troy cuts him off: “Shut _up_, Huggy, not before we get inside!”

He drags him all the way to his room, slams the door shut behind him, and paces the room as Quinn sits on the bed. He looks anxious, even more than his resting face looks, which is saying a lot. He gestures with his hands as if he’s already speaking, or maybe practicing in his head what he needs to say.

“Jesus, Stech, don’t hurt yourself,” Quinn says eventually. Troy is so red that Quinn’s starting to be a little afraid that he’s got a burst artery or something.

“Huggy. Something, um, something not that chill happened on the flight tonight. I just have a few, uh, okay, whew.” Troy clears his throat. “Why the fuck did Petey and Millsy disappear into the bathroom for, like, twenty minutes on that flight and why the _fuck_ did Millsy come back and sit down next to me looking like he just got fucked? Do you know something about this?”

“Um.” Quinn tries to consider his options as quickly as possible so it doesn’t seem like he’s lying. The only problem is that Quinn was never really fast with words. He’s probably a little on the slow side, even. He speaks the same way some might swim the backstroke: carefully and without regard for speed. “I don’t know?” He ends up saying, unconvincingly.

Troy stares at him and Quinn is seriously freaked out. It looks like Troy’s eyes are about to pop out of his skull and land on the floor.

“Okay!” he acquiesces, breaking eye contact and tugging on his baseball hat anxiously. “Petey and Millsy have been hooking up since the home opener. He told me not to say anything about it.”

“Since the _what?!_” Troy splutters. “Oh, no. Oh, this is bad. This is very bad.” He clears his throat again, loudly, like he’s trying to cough out his lungs. “Since you told me one, can I tell you a secret?”

“Is the secret that Brock’s in love with Petey?” Quinn asks.

“Oh, my God, he really is that obvious about it, isn’t he?” Troy asks, looking light-headed. “We’re gonna implode. We really _cannot_ have a love triangle on this team right now. Our chances of doing well this season already depend on a very delicate balance or things going right and if one single thing goes wrong we are in the basement.”

“Lafreniere wouldn’t suck, though,” Quinn muses.

“Don’t make me laugh, Huggy. We don’t win draft lotteries around here.”

“Fair.”

“Alright, listen.” Troy claps his hands together and sits in the chair across from Quinn. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it, because Brock can_not_ under _any_ circumstances learn about this. The poor guy is already in way over his head. Hearing about this would break him.”

“But—” Quinn protests. At some point, shouldn’t Brock have a right to know? He’s been keeping quiet since Elias asked him to, but he’s getting pretty sick of Brock’s constant moping and questioning.

“Nuh-uh,” Troy interrupts. “Believe me. I’ve known Boes a _long_ time, and I know exactly what’s gonna happen. He’ll find out, and then he’ll be weird about it, and then there goes the Lotto Line and there goes any sort of normalcy between him and Millsy.”

Quinn sighs. “Fine.” He stands. “Just so you know, Thatch knows too.”

“How?” Troy asks, incredulous.

“He, uh, walked in on them during the Halloween party.”

Troy sinks his face into his hands. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters. “We’re so screwed.”

* * *

A week later and Brock and Elias are cuddling on the couch watching a movie when Quinn gets home. “Oh,” he says. _Oh_, he thinks. “Sorry, I’ll, uh, I’ll get out of your hair.” He scurries back through the living area to his bedroom, leaning on the closed door once he’s inside.

He scrolls to his text chain with Troy: _petey and boes are either having a movie date or theyve reached another level of stupidity_

Troy responds with _!!!!_ and that’s all Quinn hears from him for an hour or so. Then, when he’s a few episodes into _The Office_, he gets another: _boes just came over??_

Quinn groans. He checks the time; it’s only 10:30. How cuddling during a movie could’ve ended with Brock _not_ staying the night is beyond Quinn. He, as casually as he can, ventures back out into the main area of the apartment, poking around the kitchen and looking at Elias, who is sitting on his phone in the living area.

“How was the movie?” he asks.

“Fine,” Elias replies.

“You texting Boes?” he prods further.

“Millsy. He’s coming over in a bit,” he says without even looking up.

“Oh,” Quinn says. He retreats back to his room and turns the volume up on his laptop when JT comes over and noises start in Elias’ room.

_millsy came over_, he texts to Troy.

_:/_, Troy replies.

In the morning, JT is already gone when Quinn drags himself out of bed. Elias is sitting in the living area, feet curled under himself on the couch, eating cereal and watching SportsCentre on mute. Quinn sits next to him. They’re showing clips of something Barkov did last night.

“You have a girlfriend, right?” Elias asks suddenly.

“Yeah?” Quinn furrows his brows. He really needs to call her, too.

“How did you know she was into you?”

This is not the conversation Quinn was expecting at 10 A.M., but okay. “Uh, I dunno,” he says. “We had a class together at Michigan, I was a hockey player, she flirted with me like crazy, and then, I guess I just told her I was into her.”

Elias squints at him. “How.”

Quinn does not know how to answer that. “Like. Using my words?” Elias frowns, like they’re kids and Quinn is making fun of him. “Look, uh. Hasn’t anyone ever asked you out?”

“No,” Elias says, voice small and soft. It’s nothing like usual, the clean direct edges of his words. 

Quinn winces. He messed up. “Okay, so, uh,” he begins, thinking about Elias’ original question, “we had Intro Econ together. I thought she was really cute. She would always, I dunno, sit next to me and ask me about the homework and, like, laugh whenever I said anything.” He sighs. He doesn’t know how to explain it. It all came so easily to Quinn, the way she’d lean over his desk with her hair falling in her face or the way he put his arm around her at lunch. “I guess it’s just like, if someone’s always trying to be close to you, they’re probably interested.”

Elias sits for a second without saying anything. Quinn can almost see the gears turning in his head, quirky Elias processing his data like a computer.

“What about you and Millsy?” Quinn asks, trying to spark something. “That’s a thing, right?”

“It was his idea.” Elias shrugs. “I just said yes. He texts me, I tell him to come over, and we fuck.”

“Uh. I. Okay.” Quinn’s at a loss for words. He doesn’t like not knowing what to say. Conversation should flow like a river, but Elias builds dams and waterfalls. “I think… if you think someone is interested in you,” he continues, pressing on and trying to hint as best he can that Brock’s interested, even if Elias clearly isn’t picking up what he’s putting down, “then you can always ask them out, like, y’know, if you’re interested back. The worst they can do is say no.”

“Do you ever worry that—” Elias mimes taking the lid off a jar “—saying something will make everything harder? Or weirder?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever worried about something in my life the way you do, Petey,” Quinn says with a exhaled half-laugh. He sinks into the couch like water filling a glass. Elias looks at him, rigid like a wooden block.

Elias pouts out his bottom lip. Then he pushes on his knees into a standing position and stretches his arms out. “Whatever,” he says. He grabs the remote and turns off the TV. “Wanna go to the mall today?”

“Sure.” Quinn nods. Elias pads off back into his bedroom, presumably to put clothes other than a loose tee and boxers on. Quinn watches him go, and he flushes at the dark round bruises on the soft insides of Elias’ thighs.

He sits for a second before grabbing his phone off the couch next to him and clicking on his girlfriend’s number. He tries to remember her class schedule but she picks up before he can figure out whether she’s busy.

“Hey,” he says. “I miss you so much, you know that, right?”

* * *

Bo is the first to the rink and the last to leave. He tapes his sticks and laces his skates with the nimble-fingered care of someone using a comb to tease a knot out of their hair. He looks his teammates in the eyes and nods when they speak. In the weight room, he kneels on the ground as he cleans off equipment after using it, pressing the wipe into every crevice of the plastic. The last thing he does before he leaves the locker room is spin on his smooth black wedding band, smiling to himself as he fits it onto his finger.

Quinn hasn’t had a regular sleep schedule in a month. He wants things to even out like Bo’s level voice and demeanor. One early morning, he walks up to Bo in the player’s lounge with a fruit cup in hand and says, “Hey Cap, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, Huggy Dog, what’s up?” Bo pats the seat beside him and Quinn sits.

“What would you do if you knew something you weren’t supposed to know, and it was kinda messing with some other stuff, but, uh,” Quinn fishes his fingers to the bottom of the fruit cup in search of the lone quarter of strawberry, avoiding the interfering honeydew, “you couldn’t really tell anyone about it?”

Quinn bites into the strawberry. Bo looks at him. “Is this about Boes?” he asks. “Because you might be better off talking to Stech about it.”

“No! Well, sort of, but not really.” Quinn chews aggressively on his strawberry quarter. He doesn’t know how to explain it. Quinn hates feeling at a loss for words. He gives up trying to dance around it. “Fuck, whatever. So, you know how I live with Petey?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“He and Millsy are fucking. And you know how I said it was sort of about Boes? Well—”

“Boes being completely and obviously in love with Petey makes the whole thing a little uncomfortable?” Bo guesses.

Quinn’s shoulders sag. “Yeah.”

“Does anyone else know?” 

“Just Stech. Oh, and Thatch.”

Bo leans back in his chair, chewing contemplatively. “Well. Not gonna lie, Huggs, I never in a million years would’ve guessed what you just told me. To be perfectly honest, I thought that crush was a two-way thing.”

“Fuckin’ _same!_” Quinn crows, accidentally knocking over his fruit cup. Whatever. It’s mostly honeydew.

Bo exhales out of his nose. “But, I mean, Petey’s allowed to do whatever he wants. You can’t, y’know, tell him who to sleep with.”

“But, but, I,” Quinn splutters.

“Petey’s his own man. It he wants to sleep with Millsy, that’s up to him and not you.” Bo looks at him sternly and he sags in his seat. “I guess we were all just… wrong about him and Brock. I dunno. They’re in their own world sometimes. Who am I to say?”

“But you’re married, aren’t you?” He really feels like Bo should understand all this the way he understands everything. Bo is an oak tree, noble and grounded.

Bo chuckles. “Getting married isn’t a cheat code. How’s your girlfriend, by the way?”

Quinn pauses then groans. “I forgot to call her this week.” He slaps his hand to his forehead. “I’ve had a lot on my mind!”

“I’m sure you have, bud.” Bo sips from his tiny water bottle, smiling to himself as he swallows.

“I’ll call her tonight,” Quinn promises.

* * *

Jordie’s getting married, so there’s some sort of joint housewarming and engagement party happening on a Thursday night when they don’t have a game. Quinn’s pretty sure it’s mostly because Jordie’s fiancee has been bothering him about hosting dinner for the team, but it’s a good time anyway, beer and snacks they shouldn’t be eating.

The wives gossip over glasses of wine and the partnered guys segregate into their own group, talking about weddings and kids and all those adult things. Quinn gravitates naturally to the conversation with the single guys instead.

“Not ready to talk wedding colors quite yet, eh Huggy?” Thatcher teases.

Quinn pales. He’s not even ready to _think_ about getting married. To his girlfriend, or to _anyone_. “Nuh-uh,” he says with a shudder. He’s much happier in this group, chatting about the NBA and college football and Post Malone’s album.

Jordie comes over to mingle eventually, sitting next to Quinn on the couch and stretching his legs out. Slices of cake get passed around for dessert. It’s about as normal as a cake can get, vanilla with chocolate frosting, gel writing on top. Quinn’s not sure what the whole cake originally said, but his slice has a lowercase _a_ on it.

“So how did you know?” Jake asks Jordie. He shovels a forkful of cake into his mouth. “Like, that she’s _the one_.” He waggles his fingers as he says _the one_, like Jordie’s fiancee is a mythical creature like a unicorn.

Jordie chuckles. “I dunno, Tuna. Mostly hard work. Relationships aren’t easy.” He turns over his shoulder to look at her. When she sees him looking, she waves. “She pushes and I pull. We balance each other out.”

Quinn doesn’t believe in _the one_. He only believes in coincidence.

On the opposite couch, Elias eats the cake out of its coating of frosting. Tim says something to him but even as Elias turns his head to reply, he’s passing his fork and plate into Brock’s waiting hands on his other side without even looking. Brock accepts the plate and fork, scooping up Elias’ uneaten frosting and eating it.

Thatcher pushes Quinn’s shoulder and snatches his fork to have a mouthful of Quinn’s cake. “Hey!” Quinn yelps. He grabs at the fork and yanks, pulling it out of Thatcher’s grasp. “Get your own slice,” he grumbles.

Someone turns on the TV halfway through the party and by pure luck, the Devils game is on. “Hey!” someone calls, pointing out Jack on the screen. “Huggy!”

“Oh, shit,” Quinn mumbles. It’s still pretty early in Vancouver, but the games on the east coast are already starting. Jack is tiny in red and indiscernible outside of the 86 on his back.

Jack skates hard, dangling a d-man and pushing the pace of his teammates. They don’t score but it’s a pretty play; someone behind Quinn whistles lowly. Quinn doesn’t turn to see who it is because the camera’s zooming in on Jack on the bench. He has a moment of vertigo seeing Jack there, leaning over the wall and worrying his lip. Suddenly he’s eight again, pushing Jack and Luke around on the lake, always playing defense against them and always winning.

Quinn wonders if becoming hockey players as a job means they never really grew up; if it means they never will. He wonders if lining up against Jack on the ice when they’re in their thirties will feel the same. He wonders how Jack feels about it all.

“Dude,” Thatcher whispers beside him, “are you gonna finish your cake?”

Quinn stares at him; they both burst out laughing. He rolls his eyes and hands his plate off, and Thatcher gobbles down the rest of the cake thankfully.

* * *

Two days later, Quinn’s woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of Elias moaning. Cool, awesome. He can feel the gentle rhythmic bumping of the headboard into the other wall. Somewhere in his exhausted brain he thinks that for the amount of money they’re spending for a high-rise downtown apartment in Vancouver, the walls should be thick enough that he doesn’t have to hear this.

“Oh fuck, oh _fuck!_” And that’s JT’s voice, gruff and low. JT is always _loud_, which is information Quinn never needed to know. He supposes JT's a vocal guy, on and off the ice, and that extends to telling Elias _exactly_ how good he feels.

Quinn puts his face in his hands and wills the floor to swallow him. Elias’ moans are breathy and in time with the rocking of the headboard. They’re airy, like they’re being punched right out of his lungs.

Quinn knows an Elias whose words are like cubes. He doesn’t understand the mental image of an Elias making shapeless sounds, wordless vocalizations that disappear into the air without purpose. His brain betrays him and pictures it: Elias with his pink lips in a circle, red from his hairline to the hollow of his throat, eyes squeezed shut.

Quinn flips onto his stomach and presses his face into his pillow. He squeezes the muscles in his calves. Somehow he finds sleep again, and in the morning he rolls over, grabs his phone, and calls Jack.

“Holy fuck, Q, what’s up buddy!” Jack says, a clamor of noise in the background.

“I miss you, dude,” he says. “How’s Jersey?”

* * *

It’s a cold morning in early winter when Quinn comes out of his bedroom in the morning to find JT on the couch, drinking coffee and channel surfing. Elias is nowhere to be found. He’s about to spin around and walk straight back into his room when JT notices him and says, “Oh, hey Huggy.”

“Oh, hey,” Quinn says, as if he hadn’t noticed JT. They look at each other for a second and it’s too late for him to disappear again, so he goes into the kitchen and makes the slowest cup of coffee of his life. As he laboriously stirs in the cream, he darts his eyes back to the closed door of Elias’ room, hoping that he emerges and makes the situation less uncomfortable.

He doesn’t, and the length of time he’s spent in the kitchen is probably becoming suspicious, so Quinn drags himself back into the living area to sit next to JT in silence. JT’s legs are kicked up on the coffee table. “So,” he says, “how’s the NHL life been so far?”

“Uh. Good?” Quinn could get used to the fat paychecks.

“Good, good.” JT sips his coffee. “So, uh,” he continues, forcing the conversation. “We’re both new guys, huh? Vancouver’s nice.”

“Yeah,” Quinn agrees, barely listening. He’s looking at JT’s mouth, watching him speak. JT talks out of the corner of his mouth, like he’s perpetually telling a secret. He’s unshaven, dark scruff thick and full, not patchy like whatever Quinn can grow. It’s hard to tell at first, but Quinn knows there are a few teeth missing in his mouth.

Where they’re sitting on the coffee table, JT’s legs are broad like tree trunks. JT is a man, Quinn thinks. Not just a man, but a _man_ man. Quinn clears his throat. “Listen, Millsy—”

“This is weird for you?” JT guesses, eyebrows raised.

Quinn sags. “Yeah. Kinda.”

“I figured.”

“It’s just,” Quinn says, building up his courage to say something, _anything_ to JT about the strangeness of the situation, even though he has no idea what it’ll be, and he probably won’t know until it’s coming out of his mouth, “Petey’s a good dude, and he’s letting me live with him, and—”

“Are you giving me a shovel talk right now?” JT smiles the same way his talks, with the corner of his mouth. He cocks an eyebrow at Quinn.

“I.” Quinn purses his lips. “I’m not sure what I’m trying to say.”

“Listen.” JT puts down his mug. “If it makes you uncomfortable, we’ll stop.”

“What.” Quinn blinks.

JT shrugs. “Yeah. If you don’t want us to hook up, I’ll tell Petey I want to stop.”

“Well, wait, I don’t mean it like that,” Quinn backtracks. “Petey can sleep with whoever he wants. I think I don’t know how to think about it. And I don’t like that I don’t know.” Quinn _hates_ not knowing. He wants the sureness and the comfortable spaces. He likes fitting into where he lands. He wants to know what he means when he says it.

“Okay,” JT says, simple as that. He picks up his mug again and drinks from it. “You can always talk to the guys, if there’s ever anything you wanna say. And I know you can talk to Petey about anything. He loves you, Huggs. We’re on your team, eh?”

Quinn swallows the lump that’s mysteriously risen in his throat and nods. He’s sweating a little, for some reason.

* * *

“You’re mad at me,” Elias tells Quinn at a dinner in the middle of December. Quinn looks over his shoulder, unsure whether Elias is talking to him. He’s looking at Quinn’s chin.

“I am?” he asks. In Quinn’s opinion it’s been a pretty nice night. It’s a day off, and they’re at a nice restaurant, and the weather has been clear this week.

Elias stares at him. Quinn’s reminded of the way he looks at a video session, committing every second to memory, and he has to swallow a laugh. He’s never met anyone who thinks as much before they speak as Elias does. It’s almost endearing.

“I’m sorry about Millsy.”

Quinn feels bad for almost laughing. “Petey, wait, no, don’t apologize.” He huffs and looks down the table at the other guys; they’re all huddled around Brandon’s phone looking at something, not paying attention to them. “You can fool around with whoever the hell you want.”

Quinn’s always thought of Elias in terms of cubes. Everything about him is clean edges, from his carefully chosen words and the part of his hair to the direct paths he skates. But it’s not so clear anymore. Elias could be a cube, but he’s made out of ice. He’s built to melt.

Quinn is made out of water. He fits whatever container he’s poured into. He’s always wanted things to be easy, but he’s learning that the NHL is a ring of fire. 

He isn’t sure about JT, but when Brock walks by them on the way to the bathroom and waves with a smile, Quinn realizes that Brock is made out of earth. He admires how even after countless storms and eons of erosion, things still grow wherever they are planted. Whatever Brock touches blossoms.

Elias fishes an ice cube out of his drink and crushes it with his molars. “I told JT I wanted to stop,” he tells Quinn. “It was fun, but it wasn’t doing what I hoped it would.”

“What do you mean?” Quinn says, trying to draw more out of the flat surfaces of Elias’ description. The way he talks can be frustrating but Quinn wants to meet him in the middle.

“It’s not helping me, you know… get over Boes, I guess.”

So, hold on, Quinn was _right_ all along?

“Wait, were you into him this whole time?” he asks. He smacks his glass with his elbow and ice water spills across the table. “Fuck,” he grumbles, wiping it with his napkin.

“I think I’ve always been into him. I mean, he’s _Brock_.” Elias is pink. Quinn understands what he means, though. “But I don’t know how to… tell him?” Elias helps Quinn wipe down the water still on the table. It rushes to the edges of the table, seeking the corners and creases of the world.

“Why would you mess around with Millsy, then?” Quinn’s napkin is soaked through and he leaves it at the end of the table.

“I think Millsy was just something to do in the meantime.” Elias snaps his mouth shut and flushes at his own unintentional innuendo. “Come on, Q. Don’t tell me you’ve never tried to distract yourself from the person you’re _really _interested in.”

Quinn doesn’t have anything to say about that. His stomach turns and he doesn’t know why. Instead of facing it, he changes the subject. “Why don’t you try asking Brock over to watch a movie or something? Or ask him to go to dinner?” he offers. He comes home to Elias and Brock watching a movie cuddling on the couch often enough anyway.

“But I’ve been doing that. We do stuff together all the time. But he never seems to understand…” Elias continues to gnaw on an ice cube as he considers his words. “Everytime I try to flirt, it’s like he… closes. Like a door. He always makes it just buddies.”

Brock comes back from the bathroom. He walks up behind Elias and puts his hands on his shoulders. “Hey buds, what’s going on at this end of the table?” He pats Elias’ shoulders.

“Just telling secrets,” Elias says, tone even the way it is when no one can quite tell if he’s joking or being serious.

“Ooh,” Brock replies, sing-song. He bends down, hands still on Elias’ shoulders. His voice drops surreptitiously. “I’ve got one. Rumor has it that Millsy just got dumped. So be nice and buy him a drink tonight, alright?” Brock stretches back up to standing, either not reading the looks on Quinn’s or Elias’ faces or not noticing a difference from their resting faces.

He pats Elias’ shoulders again and retreats to the other end of the table. Elias’ cheekbones are tinged pink. “It’s like…” Elias stirs his drink with his straw. “Everything at once. With Brock, it’s _everything_. Not just friend, not just linemate, not just… crush. It’s different.” Elias shoves the nail of his thumb into the straw, splitting the plastic. “How can I explain to him, when I can’t even… when my English turns off every time I think about how I feel?”

Elias spends time with his words. He enunciates everything as clear as he can, repeating himself when the sounds get lost or marbled in his mouth. He works his mouth around the language like he’s wrangling a bull.

“No one understands you better than Brock, buddy.” Quinn raises his eyebrows. “Can’t hurt to try to tell him how you feel. I have a feeling he wants something more, too.”

Elias pinches his lips like he’s sucking on a lime.

After dinner, they hit a bar. Quinn sits next to Elias, JT on Elias’ other side. “So. We heard a rumor from Boes that you got dumped,” Elias says carefully, evenly. “You should let Q and I each buy you a beer.” He nods. It’s not a request.

JT smiles and sips his first beer when Elias nods at the bartender and it slides down toward him. “Yeah,” he says, smiling crookedly and adjusting his baseball cap. “I was having a real good time but neither of us wanted anything more. We weren’t suited for each other, anyway. Shit happens.”

JT grabs a few bar peanuts. He crushes a few open and eats them before offering Elias a handful. Elias takes them and lines them up on the bar. He cracks them open one by one and doesn’t eat a single one.

“Besides,” JT says knowingly, brushing his pile of peanut shells into a pile, “I think they might’ve been hung up on someone else.” He takes another long drink from his beer. “I think they should go for it, too. They might be pleasantly surprised.” He looks at Elias with a level gaze.

Brock ambles over to them at the bar. He claps JT on the shoulder. “What’s up, boys? You being nice to Millsy?”

Elias nods with a small smile. He sweeps his line of peanuts into the palm of his hand and offers them to Brock, whose face lights up. “Oh, shit, thanks Pete!” Elias tips the peanuts into Brock’s hand and Brock pops a couple into his mouth, smiling as he chews.

* * *

One night later and they’re hanging out at home when Elias texts Quinn: _stay in your room. boes coming over_

Quinn stands when he sees the text purely out of surprise. He doesn’t know what to do. He stares at the text a second before sitting back down.

He sends: _yeah ofc buddy_

_good luck man_

He crawls into bed and puts his earbuds in; now is as good a time as any to watch some more of _The Office_.

It’s not even an hour later when another text slides in: _lets go to the mall_

Quinn frowns. They shouldn’t be going to the mall. Elias and Brock _should_ be getting it on in Elias’ room right about now. Because there’s no way Brock didn’t tell Elias he likes him too and they didn’t kiss and fall over on the couch in their love for each other. Elias and Brock are _Petey and Boes_ and it’s like a romcom; they pine over each other and have miscommunications but at the end of the movie they tell each other how they really feel and then it’s happily ever after.

It should be like water, Quinn thinks, slipping his feet into socks. Everything should flow where it belongs. He thought Elias was done freezing things over.

“Don’t ask,” Elias warns as they walk down to the garage before Quinn can say anything. “Let’s just shop.”

Elias buys a pair of expensive sneakers and Quinn shoves his hands in his pockets as he pays. On their way out, they get stopped and spend another twenty minutes signing hats near the exit. Elias smiles and takes selfies and he even carries his own Sharpie with him, but it melts off his face as soon as they turn away. He puts the bag with the shoes in the backseat and doesn’t even take it into the apartment with him when they get home.

* * *

Quinn’s sitting across from Bo in the player’s lounge the next morning when Troy walks in, red-faced, the following morning. “Huggy!” he exclaims, sliding into the seat beside him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah?”

“What the _fuck_ did Petey say to Boes yesterday?”

“Wha—”

“He came over to my place after, just so you know.” Troy looks pained. He has that same look on his face again, the one where his eyeballs look like they might pop out of his skull.

“Uh-oh,” Bo says from across the table.

“Yeah, no shit, _uh-oh_,” Troy guffaws.

“Wait, what, I don’t get it.” Quinn looks between the two of them as they communicate silently. “Petey was gonna, like, tell Boes how he feels.”

“Well, he did a shitty job, then, because we had to deal with a weepy Boes all afternoon,” Troy hisses. “_Apparently_ Petey was, I dunno, _mocking_ him or something.”

Quinn slams his face into the table. “God fucking dammit, Petey.”

“Hey, watch the brain there. Precious cargo,” Bo says sternly.

Quinn picks his head up, but slouches forward against the table. “All I know is that Petey said he has, like, some sort of feelings for Boes, and he was gonna tell him how he felt.” Quinn gnaws on his lip. He hates being the message carrier. It’s not easy to explain all the strange wires of the lives tangled around him. The words are sharp and barbed, piercing each other combatively. “I dunno what happened, but Boes left and Petey was upset. Then we went to the mall.”

“You went to the _mall_?” Troy asks, incredulous. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

“I dunno!” Quinn throws his hands up defensively. “Petey bought some fancy shoes, he was definitely, like—”

“Getting his mind off of whatever had happened?” Bo ventures. “Neither of you have ever noticed that Petey buys shit when he’s pissed off?”

Quinn and Troy stare blankly at Bo.

“You know, like when he bought four pairs of Gucci sneakers in February when we lost, like, fuckin’ 11 out of 14 games?” Quinn doesn’t remember that, obviously, but he does remember Elias angrily online shopping a lot this past November.

Troy sinks his face into his hands. “So let me get this straight. Let me just, let’s just, can we just,” he stammers, before sighing and scrubbing his face in his hands and starting over. “So. Boes is in love with Petey and Petey’s in love with Boes and Petey tried to _tell_ Boes and somehow they _both _ended up angry and not sleeping together after the whole ordeal?”

“Yeah, I mean, that sounds about right.” Quinn shrugs.

Troy stands up and throws a tiny plastic water bottle at the wall.

* * *

Quinn doesn’t know a lot of things about _things_. It doesn’t bother him; he takes comfort in the width of the world in comparison to the narrowness of himself. It’s always been easy for him to slide into a corner of experience and live through it that way. He’s lived life playing hockey and not much else, and he’s been happy with it.

But Quinn’s always thought that he knows a lot of things about people. He’s spent most of his life surrounded by people exactly like him. People who think, act, and speak the same way he does. He knows what to expect; he knows how to react. Hockey boys aren’t exactly complicated.

_People_ are, though. People are weird and strange and unpredictable. Vancouver has given Quinn twenty men who do not float on the river of life the same way he does. Quinn learns from them as he learns about them. Maybe he doesn’t know about people the way he wanted. He tries to accommodate the width of experience in another individual in comparison to the narrowness of himself.

He’s surprised, then, when things quiet down between Elias and Brock. Despite the panic, they’re still as close as ever and the two of them along with JT continue to rock the league. JT takes everything in stride, too, his ease around Elias never wavering. If Quinn didn’t know what he knows, he never would’ve guessed that anything at all had happened.

He’s expecting more drama, honestly. But he waits for it and he waits for it and he waits for it and it never comes. JT’s not coming around anymore but Quinn hasn’t seen Brock at the apartment either. No more not-a-date movie nights with Elias and Brock under the same blanket. No more rhythmic thumps against the wall in the middle of the night. Time passes slowly, and the city enters the heart of winter.

Quinn likes to sit out on the balcony of their apartment sometimes, even now that it’s cold all the time and dark in the afternoon. He’s drinking coffee one day and watching the sunset while huddled in a hoodie when he hears the click of the opening door; Elias comes out in shorts and a pair of slides.

“Dude,” he says, gingerly sitting in the chair beside Quinn. The metal is cold and he hisses between his teeth. “Why do you sit out here; it’s freezing.”

Quinn nods at the sunset. “That’s why,” he mumbles. It’s stupid but Quinn likes it anyway. He likes listening to the buzz of the traffic far far below them. Thousands and thousands of tiny Vancouverites are driving home from their 9-5 jobs about now. Quinn’s job isn’t anything like theirs. Every few nights the people of Vancouver scream for him, his name sitting on lips and signs and a JumboTron. 

Quinn likes the people. He likes the city. He likes the expensive high rise apartment and leather shoes. Growing up, he liked most of the things he liked because they were easy. Hockey, the relationships with his brothers, the girls who seemed to gravitate to him, they always came easily. Things don’t come easy to Quinn anymore but he still, inexplicably, loves them. He’s starting to relish the challenge of this new world and the new experiences that come along with it.

“The traffic is loud,” Elias says. Quinn thinks that Elias’ brain works best when there’s white noise, though. He burned through a rookie year surrounded by chatter, whispers of doubt from every angle. He becomes unstoppable when there’s noise he wants to silence.

“How did you deal with the pressure and everything last year?” he asks.

Elias tilts his head. He smiles, then, his teeth flashing white. “They made me do media training after I pissed too many people off, so… I didn’t?”

“But it worked out, didn’t it? You figured it out.” Elias _must’ve_ figured it out, because his numbers were record-breaking and they handed him the Calder like there wasn’t even a contest for it.

“I try to be better. Nicer.” People know Elias for a _death glare_ but Quinn knows him for a curious and focused look in his eye. “But they’re nicer to me now, too. We figured out how to talk to each other.”

Quinn doesn’t really _get_ Elias all the time, but he always likes being around him. Elias is funny and sarcastic and he always shows Quinn memes on his phone. He’s letting Quinn live with him, and when he moved all his stuff in, there were already sheets on the bed, the best quality linen he’d ever seen. When he told Elias he could use his own sheets, Elias waved him off and called them a housewarming gift. Quinn smiles at Elias and says, “I think you’re pretty nice, Petey.” 

Elias looks at him, staying very still and holding his hands on his thighs for a second, considering Quinn’s face. Suddenly, he surges forward and claps his hands on Quinn’s face before kissing him. It’s weird. _Really_ weird. If Elias is ice, Quinn is water. When their lips meet, Quinn freezes. He kind of kisses back but keeps his eyes open and his hands on the arms of his chair. Their teeth and noses smash together. The kiss is _wrong_, and _backward_, and Quinn feels unsettled deep in his stomach.

Elias pulls away and grimaces. “Yeah. Uh. Sorry about that.” He shakes his head. “I dunno why I did that. No offense, but it wasn’t good.”

“Yeah. Not for me, either,” Quinn replies with a chuckle.

Elias looks at him, and then he laughs too. They sit on the balcony and laugh out into the sunset. They go inside and watch a Devils game, and it’s uncomfortable to see Jack in his red jersey but Quinn is so proud of him that his chest hurts. He and Elias fall asleep on the couch side by side, the TV and all the lights still on.

* * *

Bo invites everyone over for New Year’s Eve, for a party much more chill than the party after the home opener. It’s more champagne and gentle conversation than tequila and body shots on the coffee table.

(Holly glares at anyone who so much as comes close to the coffee table in question.)

Quinn sits between Brock and Elias on the floor. JT, Adam, and Thatcher are sitting across from them, chatting about whatever. Thatcher says something that gives Adam some sort of idea, because his face turns devilish, smacking Thatcher’s knee and grinning across their circle at Quinn, Elias, and Brock.

“Never have I ever!” he says.

“What?” Elias asks.

“Like, the game,” Adam insists, nodding fast.

“Are you fucking twelve?” Brock asks.

“Are you fucking _scared_, Bozo?” Adam shoots back.

“Fine. But no saying shit that you and your fiancee do together. I don’t wanna know.”

It’s settled, then. Brock starts, saying something boring about never skating without a helmet. They groan and drink. Elias follows, and Quinn’s not sure he totally understands the game but he offers a similarly tame statement about never smoking weed.

Quinn’s next, and maybe he wants to get back at Elias for targeting him for the weed, or maybe he’s just not thinking, because he shrugs and says, “I dunno, never have I ever… thought about fucking a teammate.”

He’s certainly not expecting everyone but him to drink. “Uh, okay?” he says, trying to process that apparently everyone besides him is having gay thoughts. Not that gay thoughts are bad. It’s just that Quinn doesn’t have gay thoughts.

Thatcher’s next, and he says, “Well, I mean, never have I ever _actually_ fucked a teammate.” There’s a pause, and then Elias, JT, and Adam all drink. Everyone stares at Adam, trying to parse whatever _that_ means. 

Adam splutters. “College is a weird time, alright! Like, okay, never have I ever fucked a teammate here in Vancouver!”

Quinn thinks, _oh, fuck_.

Elias and JT both drink.

Quinn looks at Brock, who is as pale as a sheet and is clambering into a standing position. “Hey!” he says, overly cheerful. “I really need another drink! I’m gonna go get another drink! In the kitchen! Where the drinks are! Okay bye!” He stumbles away, nearly face planting over the fireplace before absconding all the way out of the room.

Elias clears his throat. When Quinn looks across the circle at JT, he’s staring at Elias with a stern look on his face, nodding his head in the direction of the kitchen. Elias stands. “I also need another drink,” he says, putting his nearly full champagne flute down on the floor beside Quinn.

Quinn sighs, picks up Elias’ flute, and drinks the rest of it.

Adam says, “Okay Hughesy, your turn then!” and that’s that.

They play a little longer and Quinn loses track of where Elias and Brock are, whether or not they’re still in the kitchen. They eventually get up and mingle some more, Quinn and JT off to chirp Jake while Adam and Thatcher head to the other side of the room to talk to some other guys and their wives. Someone turns on the TV as midnight creeps closer. A scantily-clad pop girl is performing a song as there’s a long shot over the New York City night, thousands of people bundled up in winter clothes.

“New Year’s in New York is the best,” JT says unprompted. Quinn looks at the melancholy look on his face and remembers that JT used to play in New York, that he had a whole different life before he got traded to Tampa and then to Vancouver, bouncing around all edges of the continent.

Quinn asks, “Did you ever go?”

“Huh?” JT says, putting a hand up to his ear. It’s loud in the room, the rest of the boys chattering about the incoming new year, a whole new decade.

“Did you ever go?” Quinn repeats, pointing to the screen. “To see the ball drop?”

JT shakes his head. “Nah, way too crowded. We’d always do stuff like this, hang out and have champagne, y’know.”

“That’s probably more fun, anyway.”

The clock on the screen hits ten and the guys start chanting, counting down the numbers.

“Oh, yeah,” JT agrees, smiling his toothless smile. “There’s nothing like this.”

They join in the chanting, counting _five, four, three, two, one_, and cheering when the ball finishes dropping and it’s officially 2020. All the couples lean in and kiss.

JT smiles at Quinn and raises his eyebrows. “C’mon, Huggy Bear, need a New Year’s kiss?”

Quinn scoffs but it’s fun and he’s had a couple glasses of champagne, so he leans in and chastely kisses JT. It’s a little awkward and it tastes strongly of champagne, but it’s sweet and JT is a pretty good kisser, too, so Quinn smiles into the slide of their lips together. JT’s stubble scrapes his chin. It’s a new year and JT’s the spark of a firecracker.

When they pull away, they both laugh and cheers their glasses together. Quinn looks around the room afterward, and as he scans the room he makes eye contact with Thatcher. His champagne swirls and settles in his glass, the carbonation bubbling to the surface.

Thatcher looks at him curiously a moment, eyes focused and dark in his weird goalie way, and Quinn’s confused. But then Thatcher is lifting his chin very subtly, as if to gesture to something behind Quinn. He furrows his brow and looks over his shoulder. Elias and Brock are in the back of the room, and they’re kissing. Brock’s hand is on Elias’ face and Elias’ hand is on Brock’s waist.

They pull away and both laugh, bending their heads together. They’re standing nearly flush together. Elias pokes Brock’s arm and says something Quinn can’t hear, and they both laugh again.

Quinn turns back to Thatcher and raises his eyebrows. Thatcher shrugs, barely perceptible. Quinn maintains eye contact a moment longer, long enough that it feels like it could be a moment too long, but Jacob tugs Thatcher’s arm and he turns away to listen to what he’s saying.

* * *

When they get home, Quinn brushes his teeth with bleary eyes and Elias stands half in the doorway of the bathroom, tapping on his phone as he waits for Quinn to finish.

Quinn spits. “You texting Millsy?” he asks.

“No,” Elias responds absently, still looking at his phone as Quinn exits the bathroom and the two of them trade places, “it’s Boes.”

Quinn pauses, freezing in place on the hardwood. “Oh,” he says. “Cool.”

* * *

Quinn’s girlfriend dumps him on Saturday afternoon. It’s dinnertime in Michigan and she FaceTimes him, looking pretty in a navy blue top and her hair straight. “You look good,” he says, and it comes out flat even though he means it.

“You forgot to call again this week,” she says, her voice sad and sweet. She’s a singer and her voice sounds like olive oil, smooth and evenly coating the insides of Quinn’s ears.

_Fuck_, he thinks. He probably forgot last week, too. He checks the date; he’s not sure how much time has passed since they last talked, like _talked_ talked, more than sending emojis and _how was class_ texts. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“I just… I don’t think I can wait around for you,” she says. “And I don’t think you _want _to wait around for me.” 

She always says _want to_ instead of _wanna_. She’s always been articulate like that. Quinn really liked it at first, the even spaces between her words where his quiet fit so nicely, but now the sharp notes of her _t_s sound harsh and staccato.

“Wait,” he says, but he can’t think of an argument to get her to stay. He can’t think of anything at all. She smiles sadly, and the video stutters. It freezes on her empty smile for a second too long. Quinn thinks about whether Elias will want to go to the mall with him.

“It’s okay, baby.” She brushes her hair behind her ear. “Maybe if I end up in Vancouver after graduation, and we’re both single, then maybe we can try again.”

He nods. “Okay. I love you.”

“Love you too, Quinny-poo. Good night.” She waves and ends the call.

It’s not night time in Vancouver. Quinn looks out the window and the sun’s still up. He closes the app and texts Elias, _lets go to the mall_

When he gets no response, he copy-pastes the text into his thread with Thatcher and sends it. Thatcher texts him back a few minutes later and they go to the mall, walking around aimlessly until it _is_ night time in Vancouver. Quinn doesn’t buy anything and then feels weird about it afterward, sitting in the passenger seat of Thatcher’s car empty-handed.

“Wanna come over and get high?” he asks.

“Um,” Thatcher says. “Sorry, Huggy. With the car, y’know, gotta drive home.”

“You can sleep on the couch. If you want.” Quinn’s not trying to pressure Thatcher, but he’d rather not be alone. Thatcher goes very slightly pink, subtle enough that Quinn barely makes notice of it, and shakes his head, looking down at his hands. “Okay. No biggie,” Quinn says.

The apartment is still dark when Thatcher drops him off, Elias still MIA. There’s no note pinned to the fridge and no text either, but Quinn shrugs it off and goes into his room to smoke. He leaves all the lights off and opens the window because he knows Elias hates the smell, smoking out into the cold winter air. He stares at the pearly crescent wink of the moon until all the tension goes out of his body.

Before he slips into sleep that night, he grabs his phone to text Jack and Luke that he got dumped. One benefit of the west coast is that they’re no doubt already asleep, and Quinn won’t have to deal with it again until the morning.

* * *

Quinn walks out of his bedroom on Sunday morning to see Elias and Brock lazily kissing, leaned against the refrigerator. They don’t notice him. He stares for a second before blushing and looking down.

He backs into his room again and closes the door silently. He palms his phone and looks blankly at the screen for a moment. It’s late morning in Vancouver, which means it’s early afternoon in New Jersey, and there are two texts waiting for him from Jack. _oh that sucks_, the first reads, and _what happened_, the second.

Quinn leans against his door and slides down it until he’s sitting on the floor. He looks out the glass door to the balcony across from him. The glare of the sun catches in the glass and Quinn squints into the brightness. There are a few icicles hung from the frame of the door and under the sun they melt. Quinn watches rivulets of water run down the glass as he ponders how to reply to Jack.

Something clicks; Quinn thinks about JT talking out of the corner of his mouth and the way Elias flushes from the apples of his cheeks up into the insets of his eyes and the tips of his ears. He thinks about Brock’s hands, curled around the handle of the fridge or the bone of Elias’ shoulders. He pulls his knees in and rests his forehead down on them as he thinks about Thatcher’s arm heavy around him at lunch, fitting snugly into the space underneath.

Quinn almost drops his phone but he palms it and exits out onto the balcony as he taps in his code to unlock it. He hovers his forefinger over the contact before exhaling and clicking it, holding his phone up to his face and watching his breath disappear in the cold air of the morning while he waits.

“Jack?” he says when he picks up. “Hey. I hope it’s not a bad time, sorry. Can I tell you something? It’s kind of a long story; promise to be cool about it…?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> any quinn/thatcher subtext was certainly intentional and its entirely thatchers fault for saying that he wants to cuddle quinn
> 
> (edit: there is now a quinn/thatcher sequel here: [_little spoon_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22041268) which you can read if youd like!)
> 
> also you may have noticed that this fic has two chapters: the second is one single scene from elias' pov, not necessary to read in order to understand the fic and also the reason for the E rating! read it if youd like!
> 
> okay much love thanks for reading <3


	2. elias

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is one scene from the very beginning of the plot, from elias' point of view, which i felt i wanted to include to kind of tie in what he's thinking and how certain things come to pass.
> 
> also... its very explicit.
> 
> this chapter is definitely not necessary to read to understand the fic! but it was fun to write!
> 
> also this is true of the fic as a whole but especially in this chapter; i dont live in vancouver and i have no idea how safe it actually is to walk around at night in the city... i currently live in st louis where thats definitely not a thing you can do but idk about van and also for plot reasons it just needed to happen

Brock’s sweaty, skin slick and stuck against Elias’. His arm is wrapped snugly around Elias’ waist, hand broad right on the curve of his side, fingers pressed on the edge of his stomach. Elias isn’t even particularly drunk anymore and he’s certain he could walk a straight line without Brock propping him up, but it’s not like he’s in any rush for Brock to let go of him. The arm around him feels good. It feels right.

Brock holds the hood of Quinn’s sweatshirt with his other hand like a leash. Quinn’s drunk enough that he probably won’t remember the walk home or how he got the bruises on his knees from tripping over a manhole cover. He certainly won’t remember the things he’s babbling right now, something about Thatcher and something else about someone named Amanda. 

It’s nonsensical, and Elias doesn’t pay him any attention. He only pays attention to the sweaty hand he can feel through his t-shirt. The owner of the hand chuckles. “Ready for a full season of baby-sitting, Petey?” he says. He looks over at Elias and they lock eyes. Elias feels a full-body shiver.

Something feels different about tonight. “I thought college guys were s’posed to handle their alcohol better,” he says. He flutters his eye in a wink.

“I’m much better than Quinner,” Brock protests. “Not my fault he’s a manlet.”

Elias snorts at that and almost trips over his own feet. Brock keeps him up, hauling him upward with the arm still wrapped tight around his waist. “And I don’t think you should be talking about holding your alcohol,” Brock adds.

“No.” Elias shakes his head. “‘M barely drunk anymore. There were more, ah, shots taken from my body than in my body, you know?”

“That’s a weird way to put it, but I know what you mean, I guess.” Brock smiles and shakes his head. His hair flutters around his head and Elias’ stomach swoops into his throat.

Things have felt different between him and Brock since he came home. It was a long summer without seeing each other, their only communication intermittent phone calls where Brock wasn’t allowed to say much about his situation anyway. Now Brock’s home and hockey’s started again and they’re playing together again, _skating_ together again, it feels like Elias’ feelings are flowing from him like a bottle has been uncorked.

Everything from last season, every feeling he didn’t admit to Brock and every urge he suppressed, has grown on top of itself. Elias can’t help that they’re wordless feelings, things he can’t explain to Brock in any language. To him, Brock is… _Brock_. It’s all encompassing; it wraps around Elias like Brock’s arm or the warm but fading haze of alcohol. 

Elias wants it all; the hurt in Brock’s frowns and the tight focus of his gaze. He wants the tilted chin of his laughs and the soft pants of pleasure that he’s only imagined in his head. He wants the bad days during losing streaks where they hide in their hotel rooms just as much as he wants the sunniest days in New York City on a shopping spree.

He lets them into the apartment when they arrive, Brock handling a fussy Quinn, and they smile at each other silently in the elevator. Elias unlocks the door and points to Quinn’s bedroom; “That one’s him,” he says to Brock, and Brock nods before carting Quinn off to his bedroom to strip the sweatshirt off him and lay him on his side in bed.

Elias kicks off his shoes and rubs his sweaty hands down on his thighs. He scoots around the living area, waiting for Brock to exit Quinn’s room. He steels himself and tries to find his courage; he’s gonna say something. He can’t go without saying something, not now. He spent a miserable summer wishing he had just _said_ something before and worrying that it was too late, each day Brock didn’t sign another weight in his stomach.

But Brock is here now. And so is Elias. And Elias wants to believe Brock feels the same way. He wants to believe that all the reading into gestures and touches and looks that he’s done hasn’t been fabricated.

Brock walks out of Quinn’s bedroom but doesn’t head for the door. He looks at Elias, who’s standing in front of the couch, toeing at the carpet. “Are you, uh, are you good?” he asks. “You sobering up?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Elias nods. He can tell from experience that he’s fully sober now. There’s a settling of something in his stomach that confirms it, like all the drunken weightiness and imbalance of his limbs has dissipated and he’s fully set in his body again, feet solidly on the carpeted floor. “You?” he asks.

“Yeah, I barely had anything anyway,” Brock replies with a wave of his hand. He shifts his feet on the floor. Elias scrambles for an excuse, anything to keep Brock around another minute longer.

“Do you want to sit a minute? You don’t have to head out right away,” he rushes to say, jerking his thumb toward the couch. “Don’t wanna, like, kick you out or anything.”

Brock doesn’t say anything but he does pad over and plop down on the couch. Elias sits beside him. “It’ll be nice to sit a minute before I head home,” Brock agrees. “Good thing it’s not too far a walk.”

Elias nods. There’s silence a moment, only the hum of the venting.

Elias says: “This summer—”

At the same moment, Brock says: “With the contract—”

They look at each blankly. Then, they burst into giggles. “Okay,” Brock says, nodding, “you go first.”

“Well, it’s just… I’m just… I’m glad you didn’t hold out.” He looks at his hands, pressed flat on the cushion of the couch.

“Thanks. Me too,” Brock says. “It wasn’t a fun summer.”

“You know that, the guys, we’re always, y’know, if you need someone to talk to,” Elias blabbers, not sure how to put it. His heart aches for Brock.

But Brock just nods. “Yeah. I know. Thanks, Petey.”

“But you know,” Elias says, trying to lighten the mood, “now that you’ve got a big raise I’m expecting you to pay for lots of meals on the road.” He nods very seriously.

Brock giggles. “Yeah, I know. Bo’s already let me know that there’s a meal in Vegas with my name on the check. I’ll probably spend half my year’s salary on wine for that night alone.”

“At least they’ll make Q pay in New York City for his rookie meal.”

“Yeah, that’s a relief.”

“You can still take me out anyway, Mr. Big Shot,” Elias says, before he even realizes the connotation of it. “Buy me a nice meal in the city with your fat contract.” He starts to laugh, but swallows it as he realizes what he’s said. Beside him, Brock has gone very quiet, holding his body close to himself like he doesn’t want to move a muscle.

Elias’ heart sinks. Then Brock laughs, stuttering to a start like an old car in the middle of winter. It feels strange and forced, though. “You know you’re gonna have to do the same when you get, like, eleven million in a couple years?” he says with a smirk.

Elias laughs, but it’s nervous now. He feels grimy, almost, like Brock’s uncomfortable silence was a rejection. The nervousness of Brock’s body language crawls down his spine and makes him shudder. He tries to shake it off, reaching up a finger to poke Brock’s face, right on the mole above his mouth. “We can worry about that in two years.”

When he pokes Brock’s face, his face seems to fall a tiny bit again, and Elias’ heart collapses in on itself in embarrassment and rejection. Brock has a faraway look in his eye like he’s realizing or remembering something.

“Guess so,” he says absently. 

In the kitchen, Elias’ phone buzzes where it’s sitting on the counter. At the sound, Brock looks down at his own phone. “Ah,” he says. “It’s late. I should probably go.”

“Brock, I—” Elias tries to say. All the rehearsed words in his head, the _I thought about you every day this summer_ and the _I don’t know if our relationship can stay like this, with the way I feel_, melt from his brain from the fear and awkwardness of the moment. His phone buzzes again on the counter, disorienting him more. Brock stands up. 

He shakes his head and changes his mind, pushing his feelings down. “Um. Are you fine getting home by yourself?”

“Yeah, I’ll be good,” he replies. “Short walk.”

“Okay. Alright. Yeah, uh, I’ll… see you tomorrow, then.” Elias nods.

Brock nods. There’s a sadness in his eyes. Elias feels sick to his stomach, like Brock is pitying him for the stupid feelings he can’t help but have. “G’night, Petey,” he says, pushing his shoes on.

Brock leaves and Elias feels a strong urge to throw something against a wall. He grumbles and trudges over to his phone, flipping it to see who’s texting him. It’s… JT, which seems a little strange. His name’s in Elias’ phone despite the fact that they’ve never texted before, probably from swapping numbers at some point during training camp.

The first text says: _hey pete_, and the the second:_ u & huggy get home alright ?_

_yeah_, Elias replies.

_cool_. _tn was fun :-)_

Elias is a little endeared by JT’s silly nosed emoticon. He’s not sure what compels him to do it, but he sinks back into the couch and replies. _yeah!_

He remembers that even though JT the vet between them and he’s been on cup-contending teams, he’s still the newbie between them when it comes to the Canucks. He taps the message bar and types another message.

_shots were fun but dont expect parties too often at bos place. grumpy cap_ 😅

_guess well just have to hold parties at ur place, then_👀

Elias blinks. Maybe his brain is stuck on Brock, but maybe that’s exactly what he thinks it is. Maybe JT is suggesting something.

_haha maybe_, Elias replies. He isn’t really sure how this would work, if _this_ is anything at all.

_where do u live, anyway?_

Elias replies immediately with his address. With each message, he becomes a little more certain that it is, in fact, a booty call.

_oh, cool, im super close actually_

Elias holds his breath and doesn’t reply. He sniffs his armpits and makes sure he smells alright. He’s nervous, but not opposed.

_u and huggy up to anything interesting rn ? i cant sleep ahaha_

_me neither_, Elias sends. He hesitates, and then sends another: _qs already asleep, im just hanging_

_cool_

The three typing dots bounce on Elias’ screen for a long time. He stares at them and wonders if JT is actually going to do it. Elias considers it. The first thing he thinks about JT is that he’s hot. He’s physically and mentally mature, jaw set during video sessions and chest covered in dark hair when they’re changing in the locker room. It’s hard to miss. It’s hard not to notice the single missing tooth in his smile and his tic of running his tongue on his bottom lip.

It was hard to not feel breathless earlier that night when JT bent over him, arms flexing and legs pressed flush against his own. He touches his chest where JT sucked the salt off him, remember the feeling of scruff scratching his skin, the way his tongue moved in circles.

_how would u feel abt me coming over ?_

And there it is. The ball is in Elias’ court now, though he still feels like he fell into the conversation backwards. He thinks about saying no and going to bed, maybe jerking off to the thought of JT’s scruff on his thighs. But it’s late and Elias isn’t thinking straight, especially since he can’t seem to shake the image of Brock’s frozen body language from his mind. He needs something, anything, to distract him.

He just needs to say yes.

_sure_, he texts back.

That’s all it takes. JT’s in the apartment less than ten minutes later, in sweats and a loose t-shirt with his shoes off, looking Elias up and down.

“So,” he says. 

Elias takes a step into his space. “Is this what I think it is?” he asks.

JT reaches out and runs his fingers down Elias’ forearm. “This can be whatever you want.” He shrugs. “No pressure.”

“No pressure,” Elias echoes. “I like the sound of that.” It’s so different from Brock, where there’s pressure on all sides of Elias’ head.

“How do you feel about, like, having some fun together? As friends.” JT adds the clarifying clause of _friends_ and Elias likes the sound of that even better.

“I like the sound of that,” Elias repeats. He wraps his fingers around JT’s wrist. There’s a tattoo on his forearm. He looks at JT’s face instead, the mole on his cheek and the corner of his mouth.

JT talks out of the corner of his mouth, like the words are sneaking up on him. Like he’s a little unsure too. Like it’s a secret he’s afraid to tell. JT rakes his eyes over Elias’ body and Elias _wants_. He wants to know the secrets of JT’s mouth and his words, of the other tattoo on his bicep just barely peeking out from underneath his shirt sleeve.

Elias leans in and nips JT’s bottom lip. JT wraps his arms around him in an instant reaction, pulling Elias tight and close and kissing him for real, getting their mouths together and his tongue on Elias’ bottom lip.

Kissing JT feels strange. His chin is scratchy against Elias’ and when Elias puts his tongue in his mouth, the missing tooth feels weird. It’s different, but he kinda likes it. He chases the newness, kissing him harder and pulling him closer.

They stumble back to Elias’ bedroom, kissing open-mouthed and sloppy, hands on each other’s waistlines. Elias groans into JT’s mouth and grinds his hips forward, finding JT hard, too.

They get into his room and Elias kicks the door shut before pushing JT against it and kissing him, fisting one hand in his shirt and palming his chest underneath, feeling from the curve of his pecs all the way down to the wiry hair trailing from his abdomen to the elastic of his sweats.

JT gasps and bucks forward, pressing his hard-on insistently into Elias’ thigh. He walks them back, getting them closer to Elias’ bed, and Elias spins them to push JT onto his back. He looks up and grins at Elias, his mouth kissed red and his dick tenting his sweats.

Elias straddles him and grinds down on him, bending to kiss him again. JT puts his hands on Elias’ waist before letting them wander lower, all the way to the curve of his ass, which he palms as Elias rocks down on him.

A moan stutters from Elias’ throat.

“Do you have, uh?” JT gasps, barely coherent, grinding his hips up, his dick pressing into the crease of Elias’ ass between two pairs of sweatpants. 

“It’s all in the drawer,” Elias says. JT scrambles for the draw and Elias strips his clothes off. JT rolls back and tosses Elias what he’s found, a bottle of lube, and holding up a condom with his fingers.

“You, or me?” JT asks. Elias coughs in surprise. He’s happy either way, but he can’t really imagine JT bottoming. The thought of it, JT’s knees hooked over Elias’ shoulders and his mouth lolling open in pleasure, almost makes his legs give out. He wants that, but tonight he thinks he wants to take it. He wants to feel it tomorrow.

“Uh, you,” he says. “But, uh, we should, at some point, you know, the other way too.”

JT grins. “Alright then.”

Elias feels like the air is getting sucked out of his lungs, but he recovers and focuses on the task at hand. He tugs down JT’s sweats to find him going commando; his dick springs free. It’s thick and red and leaking, and Elias’ mouth waters.

“Fuck,” he says, flicking the cap of the lube open.

He fumbles with the lube before managing to get it open and squeezing some out sloppily on his fingers. Then, without much fanfare, he bends down and gives JT’s dick a pump before sucking the head into his mouth.

JT groans, and Elias swirls his tongue around the head as he reaches back around himself to rubs his lubed fingers around his hole. He presses one inside, wanting to make quick work of the preparation. He fingers himself as he sucks JT’s dick, working himself to two fingers and scissoring inside himself as he tongues the underside of JT. 

He stares up at JT darkly as he works, and JT mutters out encouragement. When Elias pushes a third finger inside and presses against his own prostate, his eyes flutter shut and he moans around JT’s dick. “Fuck, Petey,” JT says, his hips jerking up, fucking his dick into Elias’ throat.

Elias lets his dick press into the back of his throat a moment longer as he makes sure he’s open enough, and then he pulls away, a single strand of spit connecting the head of JT’s dick to his bottom lip as it slips out of his mouth. The precome is bitter in his throat, but it stings the way the tequila does. It’s sharp going down but the high comes after.

“Oh my God,” JT moans.

Elias crawls back up to straddle his thighs as he fumbles with the condom wrapper and rolls it on with shaking hands. He falls back again, lying flat on his back, and Elias scoots up to kneel over his dick. JT pats around the bed for the lube, squirting some into his hand and slicking himself up, touching Elias’ thigh as he prepares.

When JT’s ready, Elias puts his hands on JT’s chest and lowers himself, feeling the head press against his hole. JT fumbles to line himself up and Elias sinks down, feeling JT press past the rim and inside him. He’s thick, splitting Elias apart as he takes in more of him. He takes his time, inching down a miniscule amount at a time, until JT bottoms out and Elias is sat fully in his lap, wiggling and getting used to the feeling.

“Fuck, Petey, fuck,” JT says, his head falling back. “You feel so good.”

Elias hums in agreement, focusing more on accustoming to the size of JT inside him before he starts riding. “You’re big,” he murmurs.

JT wraps his hands around Elias’ waist, pressing them into the bones of his hips. “Take your time, buddy.”

Elias smirks before pushing up again, JT’s dick dragging on his rim as it pulls halfway out, and then sinking back down, feeling the delicious friction along his walls. “I kinda like to go fast, though,” he says evilly.

He’s off, then, bouncing up and down in JT’s lap, their skin slapping together as he goes. He gasps out a moan each time in reaction to the obscene sound and the fat head of JT’s dick pressing into him. JT nods at him and curses under his breath, letting Elias take what he wants. He reaches out to wrap a hand around Elias’ neglected dick, jerking him tight and fast.

“A-ah,” Elias gasps out, losing his rhythm as JT jerks him. His hand is big and his motion practiced. Muscles flex under his tattooed forearm. Elias lets himself sink all the way into JT’s lap and then he just grinds, working back and forth, getting the friction in a different way.

He bends forward to put his hands on JT’s chest and he snaps his hips up and down, getting the swollen head of his dick at just the right angle to hit his prostate. 

He knows he’s getting close as JT jerks him off and presses inside him hotly. He’s so big that he feels like he’s getting choked with it, and he’s deft with his hands, rolling a hand over the head and pressing his thumb at a sensitive spot on the underside.

JT jerks his hips up, and he runs a finger over Elias’ slit, and he says, “C’mon, Petey,” low and gruff, and Elias’ hips stutter as he comes all over JT’s hand. He squeezes around JT and jerks in his lap through his orgasm.

As he comes down, JT pauses, letting him ride it out and just observing him. Elias shudders with it and looks down at JT. “You,” he pants, “can keep going. I want you to.”

JT grins and doesn’t need to be told twice. He reaches back up to Elias’ waist, shifts to get his feet in a position for some leverage, and starts thrusting in earnest, pistoning his hips up and holding Elias by the waist to fuck into him, deeper and more directly than Elias could by riding. His grip is hard and he’s going to bruise Elias, and Elias is going to be sore all over tomorrow, but he wants it desperately.

He gasps out moans, overstimulated, as JT fucks into him. JT presses up inside him, rolls his hips, and then says, “Wait, can we-?” before sitting up, pushing Elias so now he’s the one on his back, and crawling on top of him.

Elias doesn’t say anything but he’s nodding wildly so JT lines back up, presses back inside, and then fucks Elias like that, long thrusts from his hips with his face buried in Elias’ neck. Elias shakes in overstimulation and blood rushes to his dick again, threatening to get hard a second time.

Sometimes he can, so he pulls his legs up to let JT deeper, wrapping them around his waist as he thrusts in, dragging over Elias’ prostate. His hole squeezes around JT as he thrusts in like it’s trying to swallow him.

“God, fuck, Petey, you’re so tight, I’m gonna,” JT says before burying himself to the hilt and coming hard. It’s a dull hot pulse through the condom and JT keeps making soft wounded noises with his mouth on the corner of Elias’ neck and shoulder. Elias is fully hard again now, writhing down on JT’s throbbing dick.

JT pulls out and pushes up on his arms, bracketing Elias’ body for a second time that night. “Fuck, Petey,” he says, noticing Elias’ hard dick and wrapping a hand around it.

Elias whines. It’s sensitive, but he jerks into JT’s loose fist anyway. JT curses under his breath and then he ducks between Elias’ legs to push two fingers into Elias’ hole. “God,” he says, “you have no idea how much I wanna fuck you raw.” Elias keens, gasping for air as JT pushes his fingers in deeper. “Come inside you and then push it all back inside as it leaks out on your thighs.” 

JT’s fingers disappear and Elias whines at the emptiness but a moment later they’re back, now covered in lube. They squelch wetly inside Elias and he gasps as he imagines the wet being JT’s come instead of the cold lube. JT crooks his fingers with practiced deftness, finding Elias’ prostate and rubbing it with the pads of his fingers. 

“M-Millsy,” he moans, spreading his legs wider, feeling himself get close again.

“C’mon, Petey,” he says, voice rough, fucking his fingers in deeper now, adjusting so he can also rub the rim with his thumb. “You can come.”

Elias’ eyes roll back and he comes again, weaker this time but the feeling so much more jittery and overstimulated. His body feels worn out. Maybe not as worn out as Coach’s bag skates during training camp, but it’s a close thing.

JT slips his fingers out and lies still for a moment longer between Elias’ legs. Elias watches him when he finally pushes up and stands to tie off and discard the condom. Their bodies are slick with sweat and the light catches the sheen on JT’s back as he bends over the trash can.

Elias watches the way his body moves. He peers at the tattoo on his forearm and the other on his bicep, trying to decipher what they are. He sits up, pushing sweaty hair off his forehead and feeling properly fucked out. He’ll feel it tomorrow. He’ll remember the scrape of JT’s unshaven chin on his neck, he grip of his hands on his waist.

JT sits beside him. “Should I go home?” he asks.

“It’s late,” Elias replies. He’s not sure what compels him to say that. He probably _should_ kick JT out, especially with Quinn one room over. But he doesn’t really want to. A warm body to sleep next to never hurt anyone. “Let’s just go to bed.”

“Cool.” JT crawls under the covers like that, fully naked. Elias pulls on a pair of boxers before getting in beside him.

“So that was good for you, right?” he asks.

JT cocks an eyebrow. “Hell yeah.”

“It can be, like, a fun thing.” Elias hasn’t had many relationships like this. He hasn’t had the opportunity for many _fun things_ like this, no-strings-attached hookups like it’s an international tournament and they’ll never see each other again. This is like that, except Elias is going to skate with JT tomorrow and every day after that for the rest of the season. It’s different.

“Yeah, no pressure at all,” JT says. “Sex, buddies, and some great fucking hockey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah. okay. haha!
> 
> thanks again for reading!
> 
> <3


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